A6 Rebooted

[caz]

Hanratty DID have a hbit of sending telegrams.

Is this fact or assumption, Limehouse? I don't think, in all the posts I've read on the subject, I've seen any evidence of this supposed 'habit'.

But then it boils down to the same thing, because the gunman was the only person in the world to know, when that telegram was sent, that he would need to get an alibi sorted pdq. The gunman could not backdate a telegram to the time he was busy raping and murdering a long way away. But he could do the next best thing if he knew how to send one. And if all else failed he could 'recall' staying in a guest house (but not signing the register, naturally) if he was familiar with the routine and had stayed in one or two earlier that summer.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Totally shocking---especially as Hanratty was so obviously innocent. As someone said to me today in my local library,James Hanratty was such a perfect type to be "fitted up"--- --and they had to pin it on somebody. Or as Alphon ,the first suspect in the A6 murder put it [as well as him also being the very perceptive son of a Scotland Yard employee] ,as Alphon aptly put it "Hanratty was expendable".Exactly---and quite a vulnerable young man in actual fact. In all a disgraceful indictment and lasting blot on British justice .
Norma

Hi Nats,

How can you accuse me of 'suddenly introducing' Alphon?! I'm speechless - well almost. Without Alphon your cause would have been lost before it began. You shamelessly exploit him at every turn because you need him to take the blame for your precious Hanratty. There is nobody else.

I'm willing to drop Alphon from my responses to you when you stop dragging him in yourself and admit that he would be acquitted in a heartbeat on the 'evidence' presented here over the years.

Back at you: Alphon was so obviously innocent, and your efforts to fit him up (because you have to pin it on somebody - there was a rape and a murder after all) are no less disgraceful and reveal your own flawed perception of justice.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hanratty knew Acott was determined to pin the murder on him no matter what he said in their garbled telephone conversations in October.He was desperate to prove he had an alibi and thought his friends in LIverpool would back him up.Who,in Rhyl did he know that well?Nobody.But the good people of Rhyl---well over half a dozen of them,did actually provide perfectly good alibis-but Hanratty wasn"t then to know such entire strangers would come to the fore and make statements to back him up. Anyway, as the judge said---Hanratty did not need an alibi to prove his innocence.

Broken record time, I'm afraid. If Hanratty knew Acott was 'determined to pin the murder on him no matter what', it makes it even less believable that the four-letter word "RHYL" didn't feature during any of those garbled phone conversations, if he had stayed there immediately after Liverpool.

In theory Hanratty may have needed no alibi, but in practice juries are only human and will expect an innocent man to account for his movements somehow. If he can do so he will automatically eliminate himself, so it's a good policy to give it one's best shot. Not sure what's worse, offering no alibi at all or coming up with two crap ones on two separate occasions. And if there were all these people in Rhyl able to give Hanratty 'perfectly good alibis', it beggars belief that he would have thought it a hopeless cause because "no bugger there will remember me and Acott's going to pin the murder on me regardless of where I was". Come on, Nats, you must know none of this adds up.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
Here is my original post.You will see that none of the points I raise in it are directed to Alphon---none

You can only make a statement like this Caz,by discrediting everything all eleven people in Rhyl said they saw.
I do realise that truth and belief in justice - fled from the scene the moment the Bedfordshire jury ,on February 17th 1962,totally flouted the rules pertaining to a verdict of guilt.After all they had had to twice seek guidance during their decision making about their doubts about the guilt of the accused to Judge Gorman and were told ,unequivocally, by Judge Gorman, that if they had such reasonable doubt --then [it stands to reason] they were not sure .

Therefore,had they had any real collective integrity, [or was it more to do with a collective misinterpretation of the rules of court ?] Hanratty should have been acquitted--according to those same rules of court.But they appear to have ignored the advice of the judge, suppressed their doubts about Hanratty"s guilt and collectively agreed upon a guilty verdict-after eleven hours of indecision.
Since then we have had Hawser doing somersaults with the truth---mostly by preferring to believe gangsters such as Nudds and Langdale,over the evidence of five B&B landladies ,Mrs Jones [and her daughter Brenda Harris] from Ingledene ,Kinmel Street and four other B&B landladies from South Kinmel Street where a young man who looked very like Hanratty had gone knocking on their doors late on the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961.Likewise all subsequent attempts to deal fairly and squarely with the new evidence at appeal----until ,that is, we were told there was a pile of Hanratty"s DNA on the hanky kept in a drawer at Bedfordshire police station for 40 years and on a tiny piece of forty year old knicker that been kept wrapped in [porous] cellophane and a brown paper envelope in a police lab---along with a broken vial that could have contained a wash of Hanratty"s seminal fluid.HA! HA! HA!You are joking?
There is ,in point of fact ,Caz, plenty of information from Rhyl people who made statements about a young male they saw who they believed was Hanratty who came knocking on their doors in Rhyl ,late on 22nd August 1961.

But it would never do for appeal judges in this case to believe for one moment the words of those witnesses from Rhyl would it? The entire case would have fallen apart.
In fact it is clearly very easy for appeals to gloss over or even omit in entirety-as it did in this case on every occasion, some of the inconsistencies and anomolies in the evidence .For example,the contradictory statement by Paddy Hogan about his pal Trower"s fantasies; the contradiction by Blackhall of Skillet"s evidence-adding that the man he saw,at the same time,and from a closer view-point looked nothing like Hanratty to the damning evidence of Valerie"s potentially fatal but certain indentification of Michael Clark, as her rapist and Gregsten"s killer-in the first instance that is.
The truth got hidden away ,Caz, long, long before, under layers of lies and half-truths,as did the testimony of every single witness for the defence from Rhyl or Liverpool or Euston Railway Station.

What I would dearly love is for someone to explain how it was that the jury were able to get away with a verdict like that after a trial so flawed it couldn"t even provide one jot of real evidence to link Hanratty to the crime---the murder car had not one hair, finger print, blood stain or seminal stain to link the crime to Hanratty! Not one jot!
You may come back with Valerie"s identification.But Valerie first identified Michael Clark as her rapist so how to account for that?
Norma
x

Having written a few lines in general about the post I wrote ,you Caz , then, posted in response to above post , what was a complete digression from the subject matter of my post viz:

And what about your conclusion that Alphon was involved? How flawed must that be, considering you can't even provide a potential trace of Alphon DNA, anywhere at all in relation to this crime? Valerie was given the chance to identify Alphon before she was confronted with Hanratty. But she picked a volunteer because she clearly didn't know Alphon from Adam, and would arguably have been more fearful of not picking anyone out, in the event that the police had managed to find her rapist for that first line-up, than picking one of the innocent volunteers, who were obviously never in any danger, in the event that the real culprit was absent.

With the best will in the world she could not possibly pick out the right man unless the police could find him and present him to her - which would account for her failure to do so at that first parade and her certainty that he was present at the second.

Alphon, as a viable alternative, is a complete non-starter using logic alone. Think about it. By demanding stronger evidence against Hanratty than victim id, his unfeasibly late alibi change and his DNA on the hanky holding the murder weapon, which matched that on the rape victim's underwear and his own bodily remains, don't you see that you set yourself up every time you claim even the beginnings of a case against Alphon? If you think the A6 jury must have had doubts and should have acquitted, the same thing applies with knobs on to you and Alphon. If you had applied exactly the same evidential criteria to both men, with a cool and dispassionate eye, you'd have had no choice but to presume Alphon innocent. That's what real justice is based on, not faith or emotion, or subjectively championing the perceived 'underdog'.

Look again at your 'evidence' for Alphon's involvement. Would you have been remotely satisfied to see Hanratty tried and convicted on nothing stronger than that?

But I wasn"t talking about Alphon! I don"t know whether or not Alphon was the A6 gunman but Acott and co thought so and allowed it to be broadcast it in every national newspaper in England;Alphon confessed to it---several times.It may not have been Alphon.It could have been anyone for crying out loud!
Best,
Norma

[Joseph]

49 years ago today - James Hanratty was hanged.

Legal murder by our great establishment. He was exactly 24 and a half years old.
April 4th is the anniversary of another murder. 43 years ago since the great Martin Luther King was assassinated.


atb
Joseph

[Natalie Severn]

Broken record time, I'm afraid. If Hanratty knew Acott was 'determined to pin the murder on him no matter what', it makes it even less believable that the four-letter word "RHYL" didn't feature during any of those garbled phone conversations, if he had stayed there immediately after Liverpool.

In theory Hanratty may have needed no alibi, but in practice juries are only human and will expect an innocent man to account for his movements somehow. If he can do so he will automatically eliminate himself, so it's a good policy to give it one's best shot. Not sure what's worse, offering no alibi at all or coming up with two crap ones on two separate occasions. And if there were all these people in Rhyl able to give Hanratty 'perfectly good alibis', it beggars belief that he would have thought it a hopeless cause because "no bugger there will remember me and Acott's going to pin the murder on me regardless of where I was". Come on, Nats, you must know none of this adds up.

Love,

Caz
X

Well the words and statements of the people from Rhyl and Liverpool provide a far more credible alibi than those ridiculous three contradicted statements by Nudds giving first Alphon then Hanratty then Alphon such clearly bogus alibis.

[Natalie Severn]

Legal murder by our great establishment. He was exactly 24 and a half years old.
April 4th is the anniversary of another murder. 43 years ago since the great Martin Luther King was assassinated.


atb
Joseph

Thankyou Joseph.
Norma

[caz]

It may not have been Alphon.It could have been anyone for crying out loud!

I can see you are in denial, Nats, so I'll leave you in peace to enjoy flogging this particular dead horse on your own.

I have more productive things to do, like feeding the cat.

Love,

Caz
X

[Joseph]

Cyril Clark ???

Hi All,

A couple of days ago I was on the Amazon website. I keyed in the name "James Hanratty" in the search box and over a hundred results showed up in the 'books' category.
One of the books his name is mentioned in was "Mad Frank: AND Mad Frank and Friends" co-written by Frankie Fraser and James Morton.
Four results came up in this book for Hanratty when I used the "Search inside this book" function. Three of those four pages you can access. When you put the mouse pointer over the other result a small rectangular box/window appears which makes intriguing reading and looks like this (I have not altered any of the printed text).....

another brother got five. Cyril Clark, who was no relation to Kitty, married Gladys Copley. He was mixed up in the Hanratty case
somehow.3 3The Hanratty case has been one of the causes celtbres
over the last forty-five years

Frankie Fraser goes on to say that he was in "the chokey" in Durham with James Hanratty when Hanratty was doing four years corrective training. He says he has always believed Hanratty was innocent of the Gregsten murder and has always maintained that it wouldn't have been in him to commit such a crime.


Has anybody here heard of this Cyril Clark ?


atb
Joseph

[Derrick]

Hi all

If any of you haven't seen the BBC's Eyewitness programme, Then I suggest you do so straight away.

All 3 are available until between Sunday 10th and Wednesday 13th April but if you download them you get an extra 3 weeks or so to view.

Get episode 1 here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s6b06/Eyewitness_Episode_1/

It will change you views over the relaibility of eyewitness testimony forever.

Derrick

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Derrick.
Sorry I can"t help out there Joseph, names not mentioned in my books on A6,
Best,
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

I can see you are in denial, Nats, so I'll leave you in peace to enjoy flogging this particular dead horse on your own.

I have more productive things to do, like feeding the cat.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,
Just so long as you yourself are not in denial! You are not suggesting,I hope, that Nudds and Langdale were more trustworthy witnesses than Mr Dutton or Mrs Walker and her neighbours in Rhyl? Or even that Trower , Blackhall and Skillett were "more reliable" since each eradicated the other in totality!
Finally we have Valerie. Surely Valerie"s belief initially that Michael Clark was the man who killed her lover and raped her ,should alert you to the obvious---namely that poor Valerie obviously had no idea what the gunman looked like?
But ofcourse if you have better things to do Caz----then no problem!
Nx

[caz]

It will change you views over the relaibility of eyewitness testimony forever.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

In a word, Derrick:

RHYL

Love,

Caz - still feeding the cat
X

[Dupplin Muir]

Hi Caz

I'm afraid you don't grasp the difference between ONE eye-witness, whose testimony is worthless, and the testimony of 8-10 independent witnesses, whose testimony is far more reliable. Thus the identification by VS is of no value, and would not have been even if she hadn't been brutalised in the way she was. On the other hand, in Rhyl you have a number of witnesses who confirm the presence of a young man, with an 'odd' accent and strange-looking hair, asking directions. There can be no comparison between the two situations.

DM

[Limehouse]

It concerns me that ALL of the witnesses who claim to have seen and/or spoken to Hanratty either en route or in Liverpool or Rhyl were dismissed or not even called to give evidence whereas witnesses that appear to back the prosecution case are accepted - even when their evidence conflicts with each other.

At the start of the enquiry - there is not even an agreement over the description of the suspect. If Valerie really was insisting the man had large blue eyes the police were not paying much attention to her.